


All the Fun

by sahiya



Category: Doctor Who, White Collar
Genre: Action/Adventure, Bechdel Test Pass, F/F, Femslash, Girls with Guns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-12
Updated: 2011-08-12
Packaged: 2017-10-22 13:38:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/238620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahiya/pseuds/sahiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sara works an unusual case for Sterling Bosch and ends up making an even more unusual ally.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Fun

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't actually get to the femslash in this story, but don't worry, I will!

This had certainly been one of Sara's more interesting recovery jobs. It was hard to track something when no one would tell you what you were looking for, and all Sara's boss had told her in this case was that it was roughly the size and shape of a small laptop computer, green, and insured for four million dollars. And, of course, missing. Any further questions were met with a resounding silence.

It was unusual, that much was for certain, and it put Sara in mind of certain rumors that occasionally surfaced; namely, that Sterling Bosch sometimes insured certain unique items for certain eccentric and very wealthy clients. Items that may or may not have originated on this world. Sara would have laughed - it sounded like something Mozzie would come up with in one of his more paranoid moods - except for the fact that the rumors had surfaced too often and been too consistently for her to treat them so lightly.

But for a commission of eighty grand, Sara would tolerate a lot of strangeness. She was lucky and got an early lead from a paid source; it led her to a warehouse down by the water. The warehouse itself was empty, but when she investigated who owned it, she found that it belonged to a man named Henry Van Statten. His primary residence was in Utah, but he had a number of other holdings, including a penthouse in New York.

An hour on Google yielded three very interesting points of information about Van Statten: the first, that he was reclusive and guarded his privacy viciously; the second, that some of his former employees had a rather difficult time describing just what it was they'd done for him; and the third, that certain forums - the likes of which Mozzie probably frequented on a regular basis - believed him to be involved in some sort of underground alien conspiracy.

"Hmm," Sara said speculatively, and set about figuring out how to break into his penthouse.

It wasn't easy. There was a state of the art security system, a private elevator with a passcode, and a number of plain, old fashioned armed guards with dogs. But dating Neal Caffrey had taught her a thing or two, and she'd picked up a few fun toys from Mozzie as well, including the residual heat sensor he confessed he'd once used to break into her apartment. That didn't get her into the elevator, but it did get her into the office where they kept tapes of the security feed from the elevator; in a very sloppy design flaw, the camera was perfectly placed to show Van Statten entering the passcode to the keypad.

After all of that, just about the last thing Sara expected to find when she finally managed to break into Van Statten's penthouse suite was that _someone else_ had beat her to it and was in the process of cracking the safe in his living room.

Sara was wearing a green Ann Kline dress with Manolo Blahniks and pearls at her throat, ears, and wrists: understated but expensive. She _looked_ the part of someone who should have access to Henry Van Statten's apartment. The woman currently breaking into Van Statten's safe - ten years older than Sara, with wild, curly hair and a shapely body shown off to good effect by a tight-fitting suit in classic burglar black - did not.

Sara cleared her throat. "Excuse me," she said icily.

The woman glanced up from her equipment, which didn't look like anything Sara had ever seen. "Just one second," she said, in an upper-crust English accent, and then the safe popped open. She smiled and reached in. "There we go. That was trickier than I expected. Took me a whole three minutes."

"You do realize I've just caught you breaking into the safe of a very powerful and dangerous man, don't you?" Sara said, watching the strange woman carry something - _about the size and shape of a small laptop, greenish_ \- to a table.

"I think it was a mutual catching, don't you?" the woman replied, almost absently, as she started scanning the item with a handheld computer.

Sara drew herself up and raised her chin. "As it happens, I'm Mr. Van Statten's -"

The woman laughed. "Oh, don't play that game with me. Mr. Van Statten doesn't have lovers or girlfriends or wives - or boyfriends or husbands, for that matter. He's married to his collection, and his collection is why we're both here. Pretending otherwise would just be dull, don't you think?"

Sara gave up. "Yes, I suppose so."

"Excellent. Then if I may introduce myself -" the woman straightened up and offered Sara her hand - "River Song. Archeologist."

"Sara Ellis," Sara said, accepting Song's hand warily. She had a cool, dry, firm grip. "Insurance investigator."

"Ahh," Song said, sounding enlightened. "I see." She looked Sara up and down and gave her a wink so slight Sara thought she might have imagined it. "I had no idea insurance was so fashionable in the 21st century."

 _In the 21st century._ What an interesting turn of phrase. "I do my best to counter the industry's pencil-pushing stereotype. You do realize that the item you have there is stolen, don't you?"

"Oh, several times over, I imagine. It's a very long way from home. How much is it insured for, just out of curiosity?"

"Four million dollars."

"And your take?"

"Two percent."

"Not bad."

"No," Sara agreed, "and certainly enough that I'm not going to let you walk out that door with it - whatever it is."

Song appeared unperturbed. "As it happens, I don't much care where it ends up. You're welcome to it once I've disabled the signal it's currently transmitting. It shouldn't take me very long, go ahead and make yourself comfortable."

As though there were any possibility of that. Sara stepped forward, peering at Song's computer. Numbers were streaming by at a rapid rate, too fast to read, much less make sense of. But they seemed to mean something to Song. "What sort of signal is it transmitting?" Sara asked. "What is it, anyway? No one would tell me."

"It's a bit like a blackbox for an airplane, but in addition to recording everything that goes on, it also sends out a distress signal in the event of an emergency. This one was recovered from a crash site in Patagonia about three years ago. It was dormant until Van Statten's techs got their hands on it and poked it awake in their ignorance."

Sara blinked. "Crash site? You mean -"

"Aliens, yes." Song glanced up and smiled at her. "They're very real, you know. Very real and very here." She bent back to her work. Sara watched as she used a set of pliers to pry open a panel on the surface of the green box. "And occasionally," she added, poking about in the wiring through some weird goo, "very aggressive. This particular race is one I've dealt with before, and we don't want them coming here, so a friend of mine sent me to find this box and stop the signal." She bit her lip and tugged on one of the wires until it broke with a fizzing noise and a shower of sparks. "Which I have just done. And now, it's all yours."

"Thank you," Sara said, slipping it into the bag she'd brought for this very purpose.

That was when the elevator in the hallway _dinged._

She and Song looked at each other. "This way!" Sara hissed, grabbed Song's arm, and pulled her through the living room and into Van Statten's bedroom, where a sliding glass door opened onto a balcony. Most of it was visible from the bedroom, but there was one corner tucked away. Sara shoved Song into it and then pressed up against her, trying to hide herself from view and wriggle out of her Manolos at the same time. She had a pair of flipflops in her purse, appropriate for scaling the service ladder a short hop from the balcony.

Song appeared to have spied it as well. "My transport's on the roof. If we can get to it, I can give you a lift."

"Thanks," Sara said, raising an eyebrow. She glanced over her shoulder. "We should be okay, as long as -"

There was a sudden shout from inside. Sara looked back at Song.

" _The safe_ ," they said in horrified unison. The safe, which they had left hanging wide open like a couple of amateurs. Sara could hear Van Statten shouting for his guards and it was only a matter of time before someone checked the balcony. "You first," she said, shoving her Manolos in her purse. Forget the flipflops; barefoot was the way to go.

Song shook her head. "You go first, I'll cover you," she said, pulling a sleek, futuristic looking gun from her belt just as Van Statten came rampaging through the balcony doors. "Hello, Henry!" Song sang out gaily, and fired at him. Van Statten jerked back and the shot narrowly missed his head, dissolving a chunk of of the building instead.

"Dr. Song," Van Statten returned, glowering. "I might have known. And with an equally attractive side-kick now, too. How charming. My men are on their way up."

"I'm sure they are," River said. " _Go_ ," she muttered to Sara out the corner of her mouth. Sara climbed onto the railing and balanced herself there with one hand on the side of the building, eyeballing the distance to the service ladder. This was not a jump she wanted to miscalculate.

She leapt, grabbed for the ladder, and swung for one sickening moment, her legs kicking out into nothing, before her feet found the rung below her. She didn't pause for breath, just started climbing, hand over hand. The ladder jarred as River jumped, pausing to fire at Van Statten. Sara kept climbing, wishing she was armed with something more than a baton; it might be very satisfying at close range but it was hardly the right weapon for situations like this.

They reached the roof without incident, but Sara immediately realized that was because Van Statten's men had bypassed the balcony completely and gone straight up. She nearly took a bullet in the head before dropping down and rolling behind an enormous AC intake vent. Song got off a couple shots and then joined her, grinning widely. "Henry is always such fun," she said, glancing down at her weapon. "I'm at half-power, though, so we'd best hurry up. Are you armed?"

"Baton," Sara said, pulling it out of her purse to show to her.

"Oh, that is lovely," Song said, fingers caressing its length. "I bet it's hell on kneecaps. Can you shoot?"

Sara gave her a look.

"That's what I thought. Here's the plan, then. My transport is tucked away in that far corner, cloaked. I'm going to run out, drawing their fire. They'll expect me to shoot back, but instead, surprise! You're going to take them out from here."

"That's a terrible plan." And after two months of dating Neal Caffrey, Sara knew from terrible plans.

"But also very exciting," Song pointed out. "It's set to stun, so there's no need for any tiresome moral quandaries." She shoved the gun into Sara's hands and bolted across the rooftop.

" _Goddammit!_ " Sara said, fumbling the gun the right way around. She leaned out, the gun shockingly light in her hand, and fired twice at the guards, who had already opened fire on Song. Two men fell and Sara nearly dropped the gun in shock. A third guard returned fire and she pressed herself back behind the AC unit. Song had reached the far end of the rooftop and disappeared; as Sara watched, a small, sleek _space ship_ shimmered into existence. Song leaned out with another gun - _always have a spare!_ Sara thought, and fought back a laugh - and took down the third guard.

"COME ON, ELLIS!" she shouted, and Sara shoved herself to her feet, grabbing her bag with the Manolos and the four million dollar green box and ran barefoot across the roof. Song held the door open for her. "Buckle yourself in," she commanded and pulled back on the steering mechanism in front of her. They lifted away from the rooftop; Song glanced down and laughed. "Oh, and blow dear Henry a kiss for me," she added, banking the ship so that Sara could do exactly that. Van Statten, surrounded by unconscious guards, raised his fists and gave a wordless howl.

"Well!" Song said, once they were away from the rooftop. "Wasn't that invigorating! Is insurance investigation always so exciting? Perhaps I should consider a change in career."

"I don't usually get shot at," Sara said, trying to act as though her heart weren't trying to beat its way out of her chest. "Or end up in a space ship at the end of the day."

Song laughed. "Oh, this is hardly a space ship, it's just a little shuttle. We could break atmo in it, certainly, but we'd hardly get past Pluto before needing something with a bit more power."

"I see. So, I take it you're some sort of archeologist from the future? That seems like cheating."

Song glanced at her sideways and smiled. "That's what my friend says, too."

"Your friend?"

"The one who sent me here. Where can I drop you?"

"West 69th, please." Sara looked out the window, watching the Upper East Side zipping away beneath them in a blur of buildings and people and trees. "I could get used to this. No traffic or cabs or trying to park."

"It is the only way to travel," Song agreed. Sara pointed out her building, and Song started bringing the ship down, slipping it between buildings and onto her roof. "The last time I was in New York - well, that was a while ago now. Forty years ago linear time, though only a year or two for me personally. Time travel, you know."

Sara smiled, opening the door to the shuttle and preparing to slide out. "Right. Well, thank you for the lift. And you know - if you're ever in New York again and need a partner in crime -"

"I will certainly know who to look up," Song said with a smile. She gave Sara another sly wink. "I might do that anyway."

Sara felt heat rising in her face. "I have a - bit of a complication."

River smiled. "Don't we all."

"Your _friend_ , I take it."

"Indeed. Still, can't let that stop us from having our fun. Until next time, Ms. Ellis."

"Until next time, Dr. Song." Sara said, and stood back. She knew the shuttle was there, but couldn't see it at all. Only the displaced air and early autumn leaves blowing over her told her it had lifted off. She raised her hand, not sure if Song could still see her or not.

Sara stood on her roof until the dust had settled and then she took her bounty and went inside. She might have to give Mozzie a call tonight, she thought. God knew no one else would ever believe her.

 _Fin._


End file.
